-
The Grounded Theory Method (GTM) was discovered in the 1960s, as
BarneyG. Glaser and Anselm L. Strauss titled their pioneering book,
and simultane-ously conveyed a crucial epistemological premise
about creating scientificknowledge. In this chapter we seek to
offer an account of this development bylocating its foundations
against the epistemological background of the time, andnote how
epistemological shifts have impinged on grounded theory in the
inter-vening decades. Throughout the chapter, we will use GTM to
indicate that wediscuss the method, rather than the theoretical
product, a grounded theory, ofusing the method. We emphasize the
specific historical context of social researchand the content and
direction of sociological inquiry just before and during thetime
Glaser and Strauss were writing as a team. We not only show that
Glaserand Strauss articulated and developed important trends in
social research, butalso that they brought innovative
methodological strategies to these trends thatinspired generations
of new scholars to pursue qualitative research.
The foundations of GTM are rich and varied. Glaser and Strauss
articulatedthem in a complex methodological mix from what in effect
are four foundingtexts: Awareness of Dying (1965), The Discovery of
Grounded Theory (1967),Time for Dying (1968), and Status Passage
(1971). Yet for many researchers, bothadvocates and critics of GTM,
the method revolves largely around a very limitedreading of The
Discovery of Grounded Theory. In earlier papers we have termed
1Grounded Theory in
Historical Perspective:An Epistemological Account
A n t o n y B r y a n t a n d K a t h y C h a r m a z
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Straus en los 60s en donde partan de una premisa epistemolgica
distinta acerca de la creacin del conocimiento cientfico.
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this reading the grounded theory mantra, which in its minimal
form comprisesthe claim that theory emerges from the data. We, too,
return to the early worksbut informed by considered readings of
varied grounded theory statements andof epistemological shifts and
developments during the past five decades.
Whatever the reasons for this complex mix of sociological and
personal fac-tors constituting the GT mantra, this
self-referential, and often self-reverential,orthodoxy is clearly
breaking down, as the variety and scope of the chapters inthis
Handbook indicate. In part, this change has come about as a result
of thenumerous and varied applications of the method. Thus, if we
are to have morethan a shattering of orthodoxies into a plethora of
do-as-you-please versions ofGTM, such developments must also be
accompanied by an understanding of theepistemological bases of
Glaser and Strausss original method and the historicalcontext in
which it arose, our central concerns in this present chapter.
Any research method makes epistemological claims; a method must
indicatewhy its application will lead to a development of
knowledge, otherwiseresearchers would have no basis for choosing it
in the first place. GTM makesexplicit claims to an extent, however,
in its founding texts, these claims are oftencouched in ambiguous
terms and with reference to, and in sharp contrast with,existing
ideas of what constituted proper research procedures. Moreover,
whenreading these statements some 40 years later, it is crucial
that readers understandsomething of the context within which they
appeared and the rationales andmotivations behind their appearance.
Hence, we address epistemological issuespertinent to GTM and those
related to 1960s sociology in the USA.
EMERGENCE OF GROUNDED THEORY
Glaser and Strauss derived the GTM through analysing their own
research deci-sions, most notably in their analyses of procedures
and practices in hospitalsdealing with the terminally ill
(Awareness of Dying). Glasers background com-prised a rigorous
training in quantitative methods and middle range theories,working
at Columbia University under the guidance of both methodologist
PaulF. Lazarsfeld and noted theorist and sociologist of science
Robert K. Merton.1Strauss, in contrast, had a background in
symbolic interaction, derived from hisstudies with the Chicago
School and its emphases on pragmatist philosophy,George Herbert
Meads social psychology, and ethnographic field research. Werealize
that what scholars call the Chicago School glosses over the
diversemethodological and theoretical approaches that the Chicago
faculty evinced (seeAbbott, 1999; Bulmer, 1984; Fine, 1995; Platt,
1996); however, we adopt theterm here to indicate the pragmatist,
symbolic interactionist, and ethnographictraditions at Chicago.
Glaser and Strauss, each in his own fashion and from specific
perspectives,argued against growing disciplinary trends and sought
to transcend the short-comings (as they saw them) of these early
influences. Like many works,
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de rango medio. de Columbia, con influencias de Lazarsfeld y
Merton.
Strauss, de la universidad de Chicago, con un trabajo en el
interaccionismo simblico. Alumno de Mead y de la investigacin
etnogrfica.
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The Discovery of Grounded Theory continued and advanced earlier
conversa-tions with each authors mentors and, in Strausss case,
with numerous ChicagoSchool and symbolic interactionist colleagues.
Glaser and Strausss individualbackgrounds and trajectories brought
them together at University of California,San Francisco, in the
1960s and early 1970s, from which the GTM emerged; perhaps their
subsequent separate paths contributed to their
methodologicaldivergence in later decades.
Through developing this method, Glaser and Strauss aimed to
provide a clearbasis for systematic qualitative research, although
Glaser has always argued thatthe method applies equally to
quantitative inquiry. They intended to show howsuch research
projects could produce outcomes of equal significance to
thoseproduced by the predominant statistical-quantitative,
primarily mass surveymethods of the day. What they also achieved
was a redirection of positivist-oriented concern among qualitative
researchers seeking reliability and validity inresponse to
criticisms from quantitative methodologists. Glaser and
Straussoffered a method with a solid core of data analysis and
theory construction. Theirmethod contrasted with the strategy of
those who sought procedural respectabilitythrough collection of
vast amounts of unanalysed, and often un-analysable, data.
In so doing, Glaser and Strauss simultaneously positioned
themselves againstthe quantitative orthodoxy and, whether or not
they were aware of it, offered away of mimicking this orthodoxy:
the same but different. Their logic proved tobe a source not only
of major strengths but also of weaknesses in their method.A key
strength, and one still central to GTM, is that it offers a
foundation for rendering the processes and procedures of
qualitative investigation visible, com-prehensible, and replicable.
GTM builds on methodological concepts of empiri-cal grounding
derived from the quantitative orientation, together with an
explication of how to apply the kinds of analytic steps long
practiced, but seldom articulated, by theoretically oriented
Chicago School field researchers.The key weaknesses of Glaser and
Strausss statement of the GTM resided in the positivist,
objectivist direction they gave grounded theory, which we discuss
below.2
In their early work, Glaser and Strauss offered a method that
could claimequivalent status to the quantitative work of the time.
Theorizing need not havecentral recourse to quantitative
foundations and studies, instead data could gen-erate more than
numerical data. Such research findings must amount to morethan
impressions and resorting to ethereal theorizing or suppositions.
In seekingto provide a firm and valid basis for qualitative
research, their early position canbe interpreted as justification
for a nave, realist form of positivism, which holdsthat the
veracity of a theory can be determined simply by recourse to the
data.Whether or not Glaser and Strauss each individually realized
it, their approach(both together in their early GTM writings and
later in their separate works)implies far more than this view; but
for a variety of reasons the data-oriented positivist idea of the
method predominated, and has only recently beencritically exposed
and challenged. We seek to show at this juncture that this
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or applicable copyright law.
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Kathy, Bryant, Antony.; The SAGE Handbook of Grounded
TheoryAccount: s1191723
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iPad de GeorginaGlaser y Strauss (GyS) proveen las bases para la
investigacin cualitativa sistemtica.
intentaron mostrar que el mtodo tiene resultados de igual
siginificancia que aquellos de la investigacin cuantitativa.
GyS, ofrecen un mtodo con un centro solido para el anlisis de
los datos y la construccin de teora, su mtodo construye con la
estrategia seguida por otros desde los mtodos cuali.
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procedimientos, comprensibles y replicables,construye conceptos
metodolgicos basados en la orientacin cuanti.
debilidades: una base positivista con una direccion
objetivista.lo inocente que resulta que la veracidad de una teora
puede ser solamente basada en el uso de los "datos".
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positivist view constitutes only a partial reading of GTM, and
that other, moreprofound perspectives were present even in the
earliest writings.
It was hardly surprising that GTM in the 1960s took on the
mantle of the pre-vailing positivist view of knowledge and applied
it to qualitative research, hencethe focus on data, fit, etc. After
all, these foci reflected Glasers perspective andpositivist
heritage and they reflected concerns expressed by fellow
qualitativeresearchers who sought to defend qualitative inquiry
(see, for example, Becker,1958; Becker & Geer, 1960; Bruyn,
1966; Dean & Whyte, 1958; Deutscher,1966, 1970; Filstead,
1970). The title of Glaser and Strausss methods manual,The
Discovery of Grounded Theory, attests to a clear epistemological
orientationthat assumes that reality can be discovered, explored,
and understood. From thisperspective, reality is unitary, knowable,
and waiting to be discovered.
Yet Strausss earlier essay, Mirrors and Masks (1959/1969)
indicates that hewas well aware that peoples perspectives shaped
how they view objects. Hewrote, Classifications are not in the
object; an object gets classified from someperspective (p. 48).
This point speaks to the explicit continuity of Strausssthinking
with pragmatism and, in particular, Meads (1934/1962) notion of
themultiplicity of perspectives. Taken to its logical extension,
Strausss positionsuggested that the objectivism of an external
reality and the constructionism intheory development was a
problematic issue when he stated, It would appearthat
classification, knowledge and value are inseparable (p. 23).
Several yearsafter publication of The Discovery of Grounded Theory,
Schatzman and Strauss(1973) alluded to this tension in their field
research manual, As he [sic] scanshis ONs [Observational Notes] he
recognizes the fullness, clarity and incontro-vertibility of
distinct experiences in the field. These are not soft data; these
areas hard and true as he could make them from his experiences (p.
106). Their nodto the researchers experiences hints that what the
researcher can observe in thefield shapes the analysis, and weakly
intimates that previous experiences mayalso have some impact (see
Glaser & Strauss, 1967: Chapter 11); but their strongtruth
claims challenged assertions that qualitative data was soft and
thereforeunreliable.
Such truth claims tended to privilege the researchers knowledge
over thoseactors involved in the research context. Thus, in Time
for Dying (Chapters 2 and 3),evidence abounds that Glaser and
Strauss understood that the concept of trajec-tory explained how
staff defined, planned, and re-interpreted patients experi-ences in
the unit. They even point to the ways in which nurses engaged in
recon-structing a womans story (p. 21). Yet this perspective is
never applied directlyto the researcher. To us, this silence
implies that the researcher is immune fromthis process of
constructing and re-constructing. Chapter 11 of Time for
Dyingconcerns how people are actively involved in defining aspects
of their lives and theirsituations; but Glaser and Strauss do not
apply this reflexive insight to themselvesas researchers and
authors.3 Interestingly, however, Glaser (1991) recalls that, as a
new sociologist, Strauss urged him to study how other sociologists
researched and conceptualized their work and to try to grasp their
conceptualization not as
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la orientacin epistemologica consiste en asumir que la realidad
puede ser descubierta, explorada y entendida, desde esta
perspectiva, la realidad es unitaria, conocible y en espera de ser
descubierta.
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something to believe, but as the authors perspective on the data
from an historicalor school point of view and see this perspective
as data itself! (p. 12). By 2001 (p. 48), Glaser states, All
knowledge is not perspectival. Description is perspectival;
concepts that fit and work are variable. Here, Glaser alludes tohis
position that grounded theory is a type of variable analysis
analogous toquantitative manipulation of variables.
We can identify pressing reasons why a straightforward
scientistic4 view ofgrounded theory might have predominated over
more nuanced positions in the1960s, and perhaps even been advisable
in order to secure funding, promotion,and career development.
Qualitative research was clearly seen as second-rate, a poor
relation (if related at all) to rigorous statistically based
research. The rep-utability and quest for legitimate academic
status of qualitative researchdemanded that it should claim some
basis of validity equal to that of quantitativepractices, so why
not try to establish a scientific basis for applying and
validat-ing qualitative research? In part this stance coincided
with the prevailing ideasof researchers throughout the social
science disciplines who, for the most part,tended to assume they
were engaged in studies of an external reality and that
allobservers would see much the same things in the field.5 Many
scholars saw thesocial sciences as cast very much in the same mould
as the natural sciences, andbelieved that if the social sciences
did not yet actually fit that mould, then theycertainly ought to
fit it. (This view particularly pertained to the USA where
sociologists built on the work of Talcott Parsons, Robert Merton,
and othersworking in the structural-functional tradition.
Simultaneously, their methodolog-ical counterparts created major
survey research centres that obtained substantialFederal funding
and conducted studies for government agencies.6)
From our view today, The Discovery of Grounded Theory was far
too readilyopen to a reading anchored in a clearly positivist
epistemology; something thatbecame readily apparent in the ensuing
decades, if it was not as obvious at thetime of first publication.
Nonetheless, Glaser and Strausss detailed studies fromthis period
offer many intimations and arguments that show that they
understoodthe research process in a more complex way. Chapter 11 of
The Discovery ofGrounded Theory was specifically concerned with
Insight and TheoryDevelopment, arguing that researchers could and
should provide insight andimagination as key characteristics of
inquiry itself. In both Awareness of Dyingand Time for Dying, the
authors offer clear indications that the research processis at
least as much about dialogue as about data and analysis. However,
no one,including Glaser and Strauss, took up these points as
central issues for GTM inthe immediate aftermath of the publication
of The Discovery of GroundedTheory.
Schatzman and Strauss (1973) did devote space to watching and
listening aswell as to interviewing as part of the research process
and, more recently, Glaser(2001, 2002) has advocated passive
observation in the field. Indeed Glaser (1978,1992, 1998) has long
advocated active and repeated scrutiny of the data and of
subsequent emerging codes and categories through constant
comparative analysis.
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mismo estatus academico de legitimidad pero, Bryant se pregunta,
porque no tratar de establecer las bases cientficas para aplicar y
validar a la investigacin cuali?
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He argues that these constant comparisons serve to abstract
major properties ofcategories from the data and, thus, render the
analysis objective. This process ismarkedly different from blindly
gathering vast amounts of data. For Glaser(2001), abstraction
eliminates the need for situating the data in its context. Heargues
that creating abstract categories moves the analysis to a general
concep-tual and more theoretical level, and increases its parsimony
by covering a widerange of empirical indicators.
Some evidence exists that Glaser and Strauss and other early GTM
adoptersdiscussed these issues, and Glaser sometimes seems to
engage with them in hiswritings. By 1994, Strauss and Corbin stated
that their version of grounded theory meant doing interpretive
work. As Corbin (1998) points out, Strauss,however, attended to his
work, not to debates about it. Thus, for a host of rea-sons, some
of the richness of the early GTM expositions disappeared as
themethod gathered momentum to become by far the most popular and
widely-claimed qualitative research method despite criticisms of
its epistemologicalnavet (Emerson, 1983; Katz, 1983), slipshod
attention to data collection(Lofland & Lofland, 1984),
questionable justification of small samples(Charmaz, 2006),
production of trite categories (Silverman, 2001),
presumedincompatibility with macro questions (Burawoy, 1991;
Layder, 1998), and hintsof being unscientific (Spalter-Roth, 2005).
Despite these criticisms, the methodhas led to jobs, journal
articles, and funded research in addition to inspiringresearchers
to engage in qualitative inquiry.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST CHALLENGES IN SOCIOLOGY
In order to re-establish the full intensity of GTM, one needs to
understand themajor epistemological shifts that developed
concurrently with GTM itself in the1960s. These developments had,
and continue to have, a profound impact onsociology and beyond. The
Discovery of Grounded Theory (1967), Awareness ofDying (1965), and
Time for Dying (1968) were published during a time of reap-praisal
and renewal in sociological discourse. Critiques of
quantificationtogether with social constructionist statements in
several sectors of the disciplinehad spurred this reappraisal,
beginning in the 1950s. Such diverse luminaries asHerbert Blumer
(1954, 1956), Pitirim Sorokin (1956), and C. Wright Mills(1959) had
long called for redirecting the sociological enterprise away
fromvariable analysis (Blumer, 1956), abstract empiricism (Mills,
1959), and fadsand foibles (Sorokin, 1956). Throughout his career,
Blumer called for directstudy of the empirical world by gaining
firsthand knowledge of it. In his culmi-nating essay, he enjoined
sociologists to respect the nature of the empiricalworld and
organize a methodological stance to reflect that respect (1969:
60).For Blumer, symbolic interactionism meant exactly what he
subtitled his book: perspective and method. Sorokin valued
intuitive, less concrete ways ofknowing in an age when social
scientists dismissed research problems unsuited
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epistemolgica, la desaliada recoleccion de los datos, la
cuestionable justificacin de muestras pequeas, la produccin de
categoras banales, y supuesta incompatibilidad con las cuestiones
macro y las criticas ser acientifico.
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for quantification. Mills sought to tackle social structure from
a critical perspec-tive and to address pressing social issues that
lay beyond the consciousness andtools of positivist social
scientists who had donned the cloak of neutrality.
Meanwhile, Goffman (1959, 1961, 1963) arrived on the
sociological scene.He combined Chicago School interactionism and a
micro version ofDurkheimian structuralism in his compelling studies
of the self, identity, andsocial organization that inspired
generations of graduate students. Goffman didnot engage in
epistemological battles about method; indeed his acute
observa-tions appeared to be the dispassionate recordings of a
distanced observer (seeGoffman, 1989). His growing opus, however,
testified that a single observercould construct incisive analyses
when embedded in the research setting.Ultimately Goffman achieved
the balance between exhaustive knowledge gainedthrough immersion in
the setting and dispassionate analysis that cut to the coreof
social experience.
Strauss played a significant role in advancing Chicago School
social construc-tionist analyses well before his collaboration with
Glaser. Granted, he wroteMirrors and Masks (1959/1969) as a
theoretical essay, but based Images of theAmerican City (1961) on
collected data. He also supervised a large field researchproject
that culminated in Psychiatric Ideologies and Institutions
(Strauss,Schatzman, Bucher, Erlich, & Sabshin, 1964), which
depicted how staff con-structed, maintained, and defended treatment
ideologies. In one of the most important constructionist statements
of the day, Strauss and his colleagues(1963) theorized the
organization of the hospital as a negotiated order, constructed
through collective and individual action, not as a stable
structureseparate from human involvement. In some ways this
negotiated order can nowbe seen as an incipient form of his later
work on social worlds and arenas.
In 1967, The Discovery of Grounded Theory immediately took its
place as aclassic statement articulating Chicago School strategies
for qualitative inquirythat Awareness of Dying had already
exemplified. Moreover, by 1966 anothersociological classic had
appeared: The Social Construction of Reality by PeterBerger and
Thomas Luckmann, followed by Harold Garfinkels Studies
inEthnomethodology in 1967.7 These two books seriously challenged
conventionalpositivistic epistemologies because they explicitly
argued that people constructedtheir realities through their
ordinary actions, a position that is also implicit inGlaser and
Strausss empirical works.
In some cases, subsequent social constructionist statements came
perilouslyclose to the extreme of arguing that in fact no external
reality existed; a clearlynon-tenable position. Other less extreme
forms of social constructionismappeared to end in complete
relativism, according equal status to all and any rep-resentations
of reality. We certainly do not subscribe to either of these
positions,but we do stress the importance of recognizing that
social actors understandingof the world is socially constructed,
but not in any arbitrary or ad hoc fashion.Indeed this sustained
and never completed process of construction has to beunderstood as
the core of what is now fairly readily grasped as
structuration,
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Luckman y Estudios en la etnometodologia de Garfinkel, cuestionaron
a las epistemologas positivistas porque argumentaban que las
personas construyen sus realidades a travs de accin ordinarias.
Esta posicin estaba tambin implica en los trabajo empricos de
Glaser y Strauss.
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mundo que es socialmente construido.
Para Giddens, la estructura es la vez el medio y el resultado de
las practicas que constituyen a los sistemas sociales.
-
whereby the structure is both the medium and the outcome of the
practiceswhich constitute social systems (Giddens, 1981). Although
students of the timemay have been influenced by all three of the
books mentioned above, the authorsdid not explicitly engage each
other in subsequent works.
We certainly do not wish to suggest that social scientists
immediately took upthe implications of all or any of these works.
However, by the early 1970s,Berger and Luckmanns, and Garfinkels
books were standard fare on under-graduate sociology reading lists,
and The Discovery of Grounded Theory hadinspired graduate students
in sociology and particularly in nursing to pursuequalitative
research with far more confidence. In addition, Thomas Kuhns
TheStructure of Scientific Revolutions had appeared in 1962, and
was sufficientlywell-known among theorists and philosophers in the
social sciences for a secondedition to appear in 1969 with a
postscript in which Kuhn responded to his critics.By the early
1970s, within the general domain of the social sciences, the
issuesof epistemology, science versus non-science, and the
relationship between knowl-edge and knower(s) had emerged as
central concerns. Scholars increasingly rec-ognized the import of
the sociology of knowledge and its production. Thus, thereis good
reason to argue that by the late 1960s and early 1970s, social
scientistsshould have been aware that the epistemological grounds
of inquiry had shifted.
In the USA, these shifts informed theorists and sociologists of
knowledge butthe gap between theory and methods remained a chasm in
the broader disciplineof sociology. Relatively few methodologists
of either quantitative or qualitativepersuasions traversed the new
epistemological ground in their empiricalresearch. Moreover some
who had followed these epistemological shifts may nothave known how
to act upon them in research practice.8
Further challenges to traditional positivist approaches in
sociology emanatedfrom Garfinkels concept of ethnomethodology,
essentially endowing or recog-nizing the methodological skills of
all social beings collective construction oftheir everyday lives
through interactive practices. Ethnomethodological
studiesdemonstrate that social actors ascribe meaning to situations
through sociallyshared interpretive practices. Social actors know
how to enter into social con-texts, and they know how to ensure
that social interaction is initiated and sustained.Early
ethnomethodology projects often consisted of interventions into
social set-tings with the aim of exposing these taken-for-granted
actions by deliberatelyundermining them. Garfinkel built on Schutzs
phenomenology and Webers verstehen, which meant beginning study
with an empathetic understanding of howsocial actors defined their
situations.9
Social constructionist and ethnomethodological studies taught
researchers thatdata dont speak for themselves. The cognizant other
(the researcher) engagesdata in a conversation. As we have already
pointed out, early GTM sources, such as Time for Dying, appear to
invoke a similar concept but restrict it to non-researchers.
Garfinkels work broached the question of how social stabilitywas
maintained and enforced by making such stability a problem rather
than a given. This question stood in stark opposition to the
prevailing Parsonian
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asuntos epistemologicos, ciencia y no ciencia, y de la relacin
entre conocimiento y conocedores.
los investigadores percibieron la importancia de la sociologa
del conocimiento en su produccin.
entre los 60 y 70s, los cientficos sociales notaron que los
fundamentos epistemologicos de la investigacin se haban
transformado.
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etnometodologicos mostraron a los investigadores que los datos no
hablan por s mismos.
que el otro cognoscente (el investigador) se sumerge en una
conversacin con los datos.
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structural-functionalist theoretical assumptions of the day,
where order and sta-bility was assumed, and equilibrium was the
status quo. Garfinkel coined theterms cultural dope and
psychological dope to symbolize specific weaknessesof the Parsonian
position:
By cultural dope I refer to the man-in-the-sociologists-society
who produces the stable features of the society by acting in
compliance with preestablished and legitimate alterna-tives of
action that the common culture provides. The psychological dope is
the man-in-the-psychologists-society who produces the stable
features of the society by choices amongalternative courses of
action that are compelled on the grounds of psychiatric
biography,conditioning history, and the variables of mental
functioning. The common feature in theuse of these models of man is
the fact that courses of common sense rationalities of judg-ment
which involve the persons use of common sense knowledge of social
structures over the temporal succession of here and now situations
are treated as epiphenomenal(Garfinkel, 1967: 68).
Garfinkel aimed to show how ordinary people, acting on their
common senseknowledge, construct their routine, taken-for-granted
behaviour. For Garfinkel,routine behaviour and everyday routine
practices were accomplishments, notgivens. Taken together, people
usually followed taken-for-granted rules and thusenacted the
routine practices that constituted social life: Garfinkel termed
hisapproach to common sense knowledge the documentary method:
The method consists of taking an actual appearance as the
document of, as pointing to,as standing on behalf of a presupposed
underlying pattern. Not only is the underlying pattern derived from
its documentary evidences, but the individual documentary
evidences,in their turn, are interpreted on the basis of what is
known about the underlying pattern(Garfinkel, 1967: 78).
In other words, Garfinkel sought to position the commonsense
methods of theactors themselves at the very centre of sociological
research. As we shall see, hisapproach bears some resemblance to
the founding texts of GTM, but also differsin some key respects.
Glaser and Strauss also maintain a clear distinctionbetween lay
accounts (walking surveys in Glasers current term) and expert
GT-based ones.
The main point to take from Garfinkel, however, is that social
stability is anaccomplishment that may be already established in
some sense, but has to becontinually maintained and sustained by
those social actors present in any givencontext. Hence Garfinkel
had his students engage in mischievous interventionsthat upended
peoples taken-for-granted expectations about how interactionshould
proceed. By disrupting the routine grounds of behaviour,
Garfinkelsexperiments laid bare the rules that govern situations
and the relationshipswithin them. These experiments included such
startling actions as treating your mother as if she is your
landlady, standing facing the back in an elevator,moving ever
closer to people at parties or looking just over their shoulders
whentalking to them, and taking literally things that are said as
pleasantries.
Berger and Luckmann argued, in a similar fashion, that people
construct socialstability through their everyday actions, but did
so from a position within the
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be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher,
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or applicable copyright law.
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Kathy, Bryant, Antony.; The SAGE Handbook of Grounded
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puede ser preestablecido de cierta manera pero tienen que ser
continuamente mantenido y sostenido por aquellos actores presentes
en cualquier contexto dado.
Berger y Luckman: las personas construyen la estabilidad social
a traves de sus acciones diarias pero lo hacen desde una posicin
del constructivismo social o de la congnicin situada.
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1960s domain of the sociology of knowledge. We would now
understand theirstandpoint as a form of social constructivism or
situated cognition. Essentially,their book extended the argument
developing from Marxs statement from The18th Brumaire: Men make
their own history, but they do not make it as theyplease; they do
not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under
circum-stances existing already, given and transmitted from the
past. Although Bergerand Luckmann developed their ideas primarily
from the work of Alfred Schutz,their work also complements that of
Mead and other Chicago School symbolicinteractionists.
It is important to keep in mind that the objectivity of the
institutional world, however mas-sive it may appear to the
individual, is a humanly produced, constructed objectivity Inother
words despite the objectivity that marks the social world in human
experience, it doesnot thereby acquire an ontological status apart
from the human activity that produced it Society is a human
product. Society is an objective reality. Man is a social product.
It mayalso already be evident that an analysis of the social world
that leaves out any one of thesethree moments will be distortive
(Berger & Luckman, 1966: 61).
Together the core concerns of Garfinkel, and those of Berger and
Luckmann,encourage scrutiny of the nature of social research and
the role of the socialresearcher, but still rendered them as
essentially ambiguous or inherently prob-lematic. Taken to its
logical conclusion, although few researchers did, theresearcher can
no longer assume a position of disinterested observer; any effortto
do so must at the very least engage the above issues, and raise
perennial issuesfor sociologists. The accounts of social actors
must be understood to be a cen-tral resource for social
investigation and research; but the status of these laysources
raises a conundrum. Garfinkels subversive demonstrations lead to
infi-nite regress or a complete dismantling of any sociological
project; as such laterethnomethodologists such as Sacks (see
Silverman, 1998) moved beyond earliermethodological experiments and
sought to show how systematic investigation ofthe social world was
possible, while still allowing for a constructivist
orientation.
To an extent, Glaser and Strauss offer intimations of this key
development.They intended to show how interactions construct and
reaffirm structure, albeitwith a focus directly on awareness
contexts or time expectations rather thansocial stability. With
their concern for aspects such as fit and substantive theory,
however, their attention was directed away from wider
epistemologicaland methodological issues. Consequently they
neglected to develop the ramifi-cations of their own position on
objectivity directly or to challenge notions of adisinterested
observer. Their empirical work, however, revealed social
construc-tionist assumptions in detailing research participants
practices that produce thestudied world.
In direct opposition to some of the trends identified above,
however, Glaserand Strauss adamantly maintained the view that
researchers expert knowledgesuperseded that of their research
subjects. Hence, they adhere to a distinctly differ-ent starting
assumption and trajectory from Garfinkel. Yet such a view could
nolonger be taken-for-granted. For Garfinkel, experts accounts are
simply yet
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another form of document, running parallel to common-sense
material. Socialresearchers are doing social research just as their
subjects (for example,nurses) are doing nursing; the former have no
better claim to knowledge andinsight than any other account. Glaser
and Strauss, throughout The Discovery ofGrounded Theory, maintain
that systematic theorizing can claim an elevated status; a position
that Glaser (2001, 2002) sustains throughout his writings.(Strauss,
in contrast, would likely agree that researchers are doing
socialresearch, but would argue that by conceptualizing the
processes in the field, weoffer a useful account of actual
phenomena.)
When we consider all of these developments exemplified by
Garfinkel, andBerger and Luckmann, that pertain to ideas put
forward in The Discovery ofGrounded Theory, Glaser and Strausss
critique of quantitative sociology splitsin two. They direct one
part of their critique perfectly and tellingly at the proce-dural
orthodoxy of the day. The other part, however, fell short of a
target that rapidly changed form and moved beyond its earlier
confines. The accepted wis-dom underlying the entire project of
being scientific and objective was in theprocess of transformation
in light of a vast array of challenges with which westill contend,
whether we wish to or not. Although its origins can be traced
backto a period well before the mid-twentieth century, the 1960s
marked the pointfrom which all researchers would have to engage
problems of science, knowl-edge, data, and objectivity following
the publication of and attending debatearound Thomas Kuhns The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Given our intentto draw
attention to precisely these concerns within the context of GTM,
and thefact that several other chapters in this collection mention
precisely these aspects,it is necessary to outline Kuhns ideas at
some length before explaining theirimportance for GTM and research
methods as a whole.
THOMAS KUHNS CHALLENGE TO CONVENTIONAL SCIENCE
Kuhns book first appeared in 1962, as part of a series of
monographs under thegeneral title of The International
Encyclopaedia of Unified Science.10 Ironicallyscience would never
be unified in quite the same way again in the wake of
itspublication. Kuhns book aroused sufficient controversy in the
scientific arena,and among historians and philosophers of science,
that in 1969 a second editionwas published, including an extended
Postscript taking issue with the plethoraof comments and critiques
the first edition had provoked.
In essence, Kuhns argument centred on the ways in which
scientists do science in the normal run of things, normal being the
operative word. Kuhncoined the term normal science defining it as
the activities undertaken by sci-entists in a field where research
could be firmly based upon one or more pastscientific achievements,
achievements that some particular scientific communityacknowledges
for a time as supplying the foundation for further practice
(Kuhn,1969: 10). These achievements had to have some basic
attraction that ensured
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that a group of scientists felt sufficiently drawn towards them,
and they also hadto leave open a sufficient range of issues for
further research.11 Kuhns term forsuch a context of existing and
acknowledged achievements plus open-endedissues was paradigm, a
source of much misunderstanding since that date, partlyan effect of
the many ways in which he used and developed the term in his
book.12
Kuhn built his conception of paradigm change on the foundations
constructedby Ludwik Fleck (1935/1979) who remained unnoticed in
the USA until longafter Kuhn had become an icon in the philosophy
and history of science. Fleckpresaged the social constructionist
view of science, and Kuhns notion of para-digm. Fleck recognized
that facts arose from what he called thought collec-tives, or
groups of scientists who shared a language, set of principles, and
wayof thinking about the scientific problems that they encountered.
Thus, for Fleck,facts did not exist independently in an external
reality separate from scientificobservers; instead, they were
constructed by scientists. Researchers have not yetfully mined the
implications of Flecks brilliant contribution, as Lwy hasaverred
(1988, 1990). Kuhns analysis, however, captured the imagination
ofthose 1960s sociology graduate students interested in
epistemology and qualita-tive inquiry.
The outcome of Kuhns argument was that historians and
philosophers of science (and many others) came to understand
science as a collective activitycentred on traditions, authorities,
institutions, networks, and community solidar-ity at least as much
as on some unquenchable thirst for truth and knowledge.More
critically, Kuhn laid out an argument that stressed the ways in
which science as a communal activity actually could be seen to work
against innova-tive thinking, since normal science often suppresses
fundamental noveltiesbecause they are necessarily subversive of its
basic commitments. This suppres-sion or inhibition was not merely a
sociological phenomenon, with authoritativefigures freezing out
those who sought to challenge the paradigmatic orthodoxy;although
this was and continues to be an important aspect of the
institutionaliza-tion of science.13 In its starkest form, Kuhns
position amounted to arguing thatscientists viewed the world
through the prevailing paradigm of their discipline;it acted as a
cognitive lens or filter. Those who were outside the discipline,
orwho challenged the paradigm in some way, often did so because
they saw thingsdifferently or saw different things.
Many social scientists enthusiastically adopted Kuhns ideas,
sometimes inways with which Kuhn himself disagreed. Some saw Kuhns
work as undermin-ing the orthodox view of what constituted science
and scientific practice, simul-taneously demolishing the
science/non-science distinction. Claims to being scientific no
longer amounted to anything special: science was a form of
belief,resting on assumptions and traditions not unlike other
belief-systems.
More critically, and more pertinently for our purposes, Kuhns
work fed intothe growing critique of positivism, and so further
undermined the scientific ortho-doxy with its view of what
constituted proper science, scientific method, andwhere the
distinction between science and non-science could be clearly
drawn.
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en tradiciones, autoridades, instituciones, redes y
solidaridad.
las ser la ciencia una actividad de la comunidad, en ocasiones
esto afecta a las inovaciones en el pensamiento porque la ciencia
normal, suprime estas ideas novedosas.
Kunh muestra que el paradigma de una disciplia funciona como un
filtro congnitivo. solo quienes estan fuera de la disciplina en
ocasiones ven diferentemente o ven cosas distintas.
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Ultimately this path can lead to a relativist free-for-all, but
at the very least itconfounded any attempt to develop the social
sciences in the same mould as thetraditional view of the physical
sciences.
Whatever ones views of the trends exemplified and embodied in
the work ofGarfinkel, Berger and Luckmann, and particularly Kuhn,
by the mid-1970s abody of well-founded opinion had emerged that at
the very least offered an alter-native view of the social sciences
and how the social world could and should bestudied; and also
questioned the coherence of the exemplars held up to these
disciplinary upstarts as paragons of academic and intellectual
virtue, the hardsciences, and positivist scientific
practices.14
GROUNDED THEORY METHOD: GATHER YOUR DATA WHILE YOU MAY
The four founding texts and the trajectory of GTM clearly
emanate from a pro-found dissatisfaction with the prevailing
approach of university-based socialresearch in the USA in the
1960s. Glaser and Strauss took issue from the verystart with two
key features of the established institutional orthodoxy: (1) the
primacy accorded to verification of existing theories; and (2) what
they termtheory generated by logical deduction from a priori
assumptions (1967: 3).Hence, they stressed developing or generating
novel theories as opposed to ver-ification of existing ones, and
urged social researchers to go into the field togather data without
a ready-prepared theoretical framework to guide them.
Not surprisingly, Glaser and Strauss over-emphasized the faults
of those theychallenged and under-emphasized the problems of the
alternative they proposed.In particular, their early work placed
huge emphasis on data, albeit not in thesense of what they saw as
the near-mindless data gathering that was the proce-dural order of
the prevailing deductive verificationism; but data itself
wasposited as non-problematic, something to be observed in
phenomenalist fash-ion by a disinterested researcher. Certainly
Glaser and Strauss were equally concerned that analysis accompanied
data collection, rather than being postponeduntil its completion.
They introduced the term constant comparison to aid andabet ongoing
analysis; but the imagery of research being grounded in the datawas
unfortunately bound to elevate data to prime position precisely at
a timewhen the term data itself was increasingly problematic.
In part this preoccupation with data arose because Glaser and
Strauss, in addi-tion to focusing on the very real deficiencies of
social research, were also inor-dinately keen to uphold qualitative
social research as a scientifically respectablepractice which had
to be learned and in which specific expertise had to be devel-oped.
They were quite explicit about this position. Indeed, they stressed
that anymethod must adhere to scientific rigour, and that the
generating of sociologicaltheory is the sole job of sociologists.
Professionals and lay people cannot generate sociological theory
from their work. Only sociologists are trained towant it, to look
for it, and to generate it (Glaser & Strauss, 1967: 6 7).
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Glaser and Strauss amplified this position by detailing how they
conceived ofthe interrelated jobs of theory in sociology (Glaser
& Strauss, 1967: 3), namely:
(1) to enable prediction and explanation of behaviour; (2) to be
useful in theoretical advancein sociology; (3) to be usable in
practical applicationsprediction and explanation should beable to
give the practitioner understanding and some control of situations;
(4) to provide aperspective on behavioura stance to be taken toward
data; and (5) to guide and provide a style for research on
particular areas of behaviour (Glaser & Strauss, 1967: 3).
These five theoretical jobs would be acceptable to even the most
verificationist,empirical sociologist. But taken together with
their stress on inductive data gath-ering, Glaser and Strauss offer
a fairly succinct summary of a scientistic15 orpositivist position.
In short, they presented a view of scientific practice and theory
of knowledge that the ideas of Kuhn et al. already had challenged,
if notundermined, as we described earlier. Their scientistic
position may well havebeen at odds with what they each actually
sought to advocate, but in the ensuingdecades the inherent
positivism in statements such as these came to efface muchof the
rich profundity of their early writings.
The key positivist feature of GTM in many of its classic texts
is the variousexhortations about data. Data is an unproblematic
concept for positivists; it issimply what one observes and notes
down in the course of doing ones research.So too for Glaser and
Strauss in the 1960s, and for many GTM proponents sincethen. How
researchers define, produce, and record data largely remains
unexam-ined. This uncritical stance towards data emanates from the
assumption that datareside in an external reality that researchers
can access and examine in a straight-forward manner. Glaser (1978,
1992, 2002) insists that researchers let dataemerge, and must not
preconceive them either through applying extant concepts orasking
extensive questions of research participants. Glaser does not
acknowledgethat researchers own standpoints, historical locations,
and relative privilegesshape what they can see.16
In particular, Glasers constant refrain has always been all is
data; right up tothe present day. As it stands, this stance might
not be too problematic; except thatit is often taken to mean data
is all; in other words the inductive gathering of datawill somehow
lead to the emergence of concepts and a grounded theory.
Glasersstance implies that the researcher does not need to be
concerned with quality of thedata, range of data, amount of data,
access to data, or accuracy of data.
INDUCTION, DEDUCTION, ABDUCTION
Glaser and Strauss were always keen to demonstrate that their
method wasinductive, as opposed to the conventional deductive
approaches they were chal-lenging. They did not couch their
criticism of theory generated by logicaldeduction from a priori
assumptions in philosophical or methodological terms as such.
Rather they pointed to the failure of this prevailing approach
to
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en el dato pero no examinaron como las investigadores definen,
producen y toman nota de la informacin.
"los datos emergen" pero no se toma en cuenta que los
investigadores tienen un punto de vista propio, con una ubicacin
histrica y con algunos elementos que le dan forma a lo que pueden
ver.
para Glaser parecera que no importa la calidad de los datos, el
rango de los datos, la cantidad de los d, el acceso a los d, la
precisin de los d.
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generate new theories. This is a key point. A good deal of
debate had alwaysoccurred about the nature of appropriate methods
for the social sciences datingback to the nineteenth century, in
particular the Methodenstreit (methods con-flict) originating in
the German-speaking world in the 1880s, and to whichWeber and
Sombart contributed. In the 1960s, this debate was re-ignited as
theworks of Karl Popper, Jurgen Habermas, and others were
published.
Put in simple terms, the problem of induction is that merely
because one has col-lected a limitless number of seemingly
identical observations, one has no certaintythat generalizing from
these observations produces a valid conclusion. One aspectof the
problem of induction is that of failing to see the exception. Thus
if one issitting on a riverbank, one might observe several swans
swimming past. They areall white in colour and, after counting 10,
20, 100, or more, one might betempted to conclude that all swans
are white, unaware that the black swan wentby sometime earlier, or
will pass by soon after one ceases making observations.The other
problematic aspect of induction was clearly stated by David Hume in
theeighteenth century as follows: It is impossible, therefore, that
any arguments fromexperience can prove this resemblance of the past
to the future; since all thesearguments are founded on the
supposition of that resemblance. In other words,similarity is in
the eye of the researcher; deciding that two or more
observationsare similar is itself a part of the research process,
and cannot be seen merely assome mechanistic form of counting
occurrences and accruing a mass of data.17
In the wake of such work, use of terms such as induction and
deduction in anymethodological context needed to be handled with
some attention to the devel-oping discussions. All that Glaser and
Strauss could offer was an exhortation toapply an inductive method,
with no reference to the body of arguments about theproblems of
induction. Although good reasons for their silence may have
existedin the 1960s, followers of GTM continued along this path
which even proponentsof the method have described as nave Baconian
inductivism (Haig, 1995).
We do not suggest that deductive reasoning is better than
inductive reasoning,nor do we treat Glaser and Strausss criticism
of the prevailing methods in social sciences in the USA at the time
as without foundation. We do wish to alertpeople to the silences
and lacunae in their early writings, which Strauss andCorbin (1994)
acknowledge when they state, Because of the partly
rhetoricalpurpose of that book [The Discovery of Grounded Theory]
and the authorsemphasis on the need for grounded theories, Glaser
and Strauss overplayed theinductive aspects (p. 277). These
deficiencies have become more problematic inthe intervening period,
but are now being remedied, in many cases by the sort ofwork that
has been accomplished by many of the contributors to this
volume.
Further evidence of Strausss awareness of some of these issues
appear inMirrors and Masks:
any particular object can be named and thus located in countless
ways. The naming sets inwithin a context of quite differently
related classes. The nature or essence of an object doesnot reside
mysteriously within the object itself but is dependent upon how it
is defined (p. 20).[our emphasis]
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The direction of activity depends upon the particular ways that
objects are classified (p. 21). it is the definition of what the
object is that allows action to occur with reference to
what it is taken to be (p. 22). [our emphasis]
Strauss was influenced by the writings of Dewey, Peirce, Mead,
and Blumer.He saw research as an analytic interplay between
analysing inductive data, con-ceptualizing them, and then checking
these conceptions through further datagathering which brings in
deductive elements. His approach uses abductive rea-soning. The
logic of abduction entails studying individual cases inductively
anddiscerning a surprising finding and then asking how theory could
account for it.The researcher subsequently puts all these possible
theories to test by gatheringmore data to ascertain the most
plausible explanation. Abductive reasoningresides at the core of
grounded theory logic: it links empirical observation
withimaginative interpretation, but does so by seeking theoretical
accountabilitythrough returning to the empirical world (see also
Chapter 10 by Reichertz andChapters 26 and 27 by Locke and Strbing,
respectively).
GROUNDED THEORY METHOD: MOVING BEYOND THE MANTRA
Glaser and Strauss stated from the outset that their method is
based on induction;and they clearly used the term in the sense of
building from the specific to thegeneric. Their rationale for this
in the 1960s was clearly to distinguish theirapproach from the
hypothesis-driven deductive method that, as far as they
wereconcerned, characterized the social and behavioural sciences at
the time, at leastin the USA. The standard model of social science
research in the 1960s was onein which graduate researchers drew out
hypotheses from the works of the grandold men of social theory, and
then sought to test those hypotheses in social set-tings. Glaser
and Strauss gave researchers a way out of this model by offering
aclear rationale for doing fieldwork without having recourse to the
grand theoriesand grand theorists. Parsons, Merton, and Lazarsfeld
had broken with the earliertrend, generating their own grand
theories or, in Lazarsfelds case, a methodol-ogy to gather facts.
As Glaser and Strauss state, But even these few havelacked methods
for generating theory from data, or at any rate have not
writtenabout their methods. They have played theoretical capitalist
to the mass ofproletariat testers (Glaser & Strauss, 1967:
10).
Thus, Glaser and Strauss had sound reasons for their clarion
call for an induc-tive approach. Given the period in which their
first books appeared, it was notsurprising that their concept of
induction was fairly uncomplicated and easily ledto a staunch
position of phenomenalism as defined above. Examples are easy
tofind in their early work, but also in their later writings.
Glaser and Strauss continually refer to theory being grounded in
the data, with theory almost mystically emerging from the data.
Such statements are often quoted as themantra of the grounded
theorist. Like a mantra, it is continually chanted but rarely
questioned or examined. Indeed today numerous publications
claim
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to use GTM that do no more than refer to The Discovery of
Grounded Theoryand quote the mantraand perhaps subsequently elicit
major criticisms (seeAtkinson, Coffey, & Delamont, 2003;
Spalter-Roth, 2005). A few examples fromearly and late GTM
publications will serve as illustrations of Glaser and
Strausssviews, both when they wrote in concert and later when they
published separatelyand when Strauss co-authored with Corbin:
[t]he basic theme in our book is the discovery of theory from
data systematically obtained fromsocial research (Glaser &
Strauss, 1967: 2).
Theory based on data can usually not be completely refuted by
more data or replaced by anothertheory. Since it is too intimately
linked to data, it is destined to last despite its inevitable
modification and reformulation (Glaser & Strauss, 1967: 4).
the generation of theory from such insights [sources other than
data] must then be broughtinto relation to the data, or there is
great danger that theory and empirical world will mismatch(Glaser
& Strauss, 1967: 6).
The first step in gaining theoretical sensitivity is to enter
the research setting with as few pre-determined ideas as
possibleespecially logically deducted [sic], a prior [sic]
hypotheses. In thisposture, the analyst is able to remain sensitive
to the data by being able to record events anddetect happenings
without first having them filtered through and squared with
pre-existinghypotheses and biases (Glaser, 1978: 23).
A theory must be readily modifiable, based on ever-emerging
notions from more data (Glaser, 1978: 4).
A researcher does not begin a project with a preconceived theory
in mind (unless his or her purposeis to elaborate and extend
existing theory). Rather, the researcher begins with an area of
studyand allows the theory to emerge from the data (Strauss &
Corbin, 1998: 12).
Creativity manifests itself in the ability of researchers to
aptly name categories, ask stimulatingquestions, make comparisons,
and extract an innovative, integrated, realistic scheme frommasses
of unorganized, raw data (Strauss & Corbin, 1998: 13).
Although we do not create data, we create theory out of data
(Strauss & Corbin, 1998: 56). One would hope that by sticking
to the data the analyst is left out of the interpretive
process,
but this is highly unlikely (Corbin, 1998: 123).
Ironically, Strauss and Corbin (1994) take a different stance
towards data whenthey state, Theories are always traceable to the
data that gave rise to themwithinthe interactive context of data
collecting and data analyzing, in which the analystis also a
crucially significant interactant (pp. 278279).
GTM: MOST WIDELY USED QUALITATIVE METHOD
For a variety of reasons GTM steadily gained in popularity,
initially in the socialsciences and eventually well beyond, moving
out into any discipline whereresearch involved contact with human
subjects in specific situations. By the late 1990s, surveys
indicated that among published papers reporting on qualita-tive
research, two out of every three claimed to be using GTM (Titscher
et al.,2000). One reason for GTMs popularity was that claiming to
use the methodallowed a degree of licence to the researcher,
particularly in the early stages of producing a proposal, and hence
use of GTM would later be claimed in
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published accounts. Haig (1995) called GTM a useful umbrella
term, conceal-ing more than it revealed; and this strand of
criticism certainly has some basis.Given its popularity it is not
surprising that the method has received wide atten-tion, including
many extended critiques, they are much testimony to its
widespreaduse as they are to any inherent weaknesses.
Many of the criticisms can be allayed with reference to the
extended body ofresearch that has accrued since the 1960s. This
body of work is not monolithic.There is, as most readers of this
Handbook will already realize, the fundamentaldichotomy between the
two founders, but this is by no means the only contourto be traced
through GTM research over the past 40 years. The variation in
useand implementation of the method across a wide range of topics,
disciplines, andresearchers is far more important. As a result, a
large and growing body of workclaims use of GTM that can itself now
be cited, and used as guidanceand some-times as warning. Until
comparatively recently, most researchers claiming to beusing GTM
cited only a very small and constrained portion of this literature.
Inrecent years, however, this trend has started to change and
citations to GTM havemoved beyond the confines of Glaser and
Strauss, plus either Strauss and Corbinor Glaser on his own. This
trend reflects the health and vigour of the method. In many
regards, GTM is developing in a manner similar to Action
Research(AR; see Chapter 18 by Dick). AR can be traced back to the
pioneering work ofKurt Lewin and others, but is now identifiable in
many different approaches allof which retain key characteristics of
the early formulations, but each of whichhas taken those insights
and developed them according to different contexts, dis-ciplinary
conventions, conceptual and theoretical engagements, and forms
ofimplementation. This diversity needs to be seen as a basis for
discussion andexchange of ideas, not an excuse to erect barriers
between one true version ofGTM and all others, inevitably deemed to
be impostors or diluted forms of theone authentic method.
We have demonstrated here that GTM developed against a
background of increasing discussion and questioning of fundamental
philosophical precepts;a process that extended well beyond the
narrow confines of philosophy seminars,going deep into the social
sciences and beyond. As a result, the emergence of GTM is a history
of not only chasing a moving target (i.e. scientific rigour)but
also one that is doubling back on itself and meeting qualitative
and interpretive strategies coming at it from elsewhere. As a
consequence the pop-ularity of GTM is double-edged. In its early
formulations, it provided a justification for doing qualitative
research, but it did so initially by imposing a positivist mantle
on that process. Later, others have shown how this mantle can be
stripped away (e.g. Bryant, 2002; Charmaz, 2000, 2006; Clarke,
2005;Dey, 1999; Locke, 2001). We need to understand this
trajectory, and to some extent dismantle the method from its
initial formulations. Although this project may prove disagreeable
to some of its proponents, it will have a significant impact on the
ways in which the method is both practiced and justified.
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One key problem is that GTM literature on the method itself from
the late1960s to at least the early 1980s remained almost untouched
by any of theseepistemological developments that we have
discussed.18 This point may also betrue for many other research
methods, but it is far more critical for GTM becausethe founding
manifesto of the method specifically addressed key issues such
asthe role of the researcher, the concepts of data and induction,
and the generationof theory. And all of these have extensive
ramifications, particularly in the light ofthe developments in
philosophy of science, epistemology, and the sociology of science
from the early 1960s onwards.
For whatever reasons, neither Glaser nor Strauss demonstrated
sustainedengagement with these conceptual developments throughout
their various pub-lications. Glaser was initially a student of
Merton, and so it might be expectedthat he would have attended to
debates in the sociology of science, but he hasalways made it clear
that he rapidly moved away from Mertons stance onmany key issues.19
Strauss may have stood at the periphery of the various cri-tiques
of positivism and scientific method at the time. From his own
intellec-tual formation, he certainly adopted the pragmatist study
of action and understood the methodological implications of
symbolic interactionism, which raised similar issues about
contingency, multiplicity of meaning,observers values, and
provisional truth.20 Strauss and Corbin mention severalof these
issues in their 1994 chapter and Strauss demonstrates his awareness
ofthe methodological implications of pragmatism in Continual
Permutations ofAction (1993).
So we are left with a conundrum; one which may eventually be
resolved, butat this stage we can only take note of it and move on.
In doing so it is importantto note that the very popularity of GTM
attests to its profound attraction and use-fulness; but we must
distinguish between what is key to the method, and whatneeds to be
discarded or reformulated if the method is to shake off its
reputationfor being positivist, philosophically nave, and a refuge
for the methodologicallyindecisive.
Many of the chapters in this Handbook demonstrate the rich and
varied usesof GTM, and all in some way attest to its value and
attraction as a method. In sum-mary we can offer the following
benefits and attractions of GTM. This method:
fulfils a need to justify qualitative approaches (justification
of process); justifies qualitative research in terms familiar to
quantitative researchersdata, validity, systematic,
empirical, etc. (justification of ontology); and thus keeps the
gate-keepers placated and satisfied (justification by publication
and
acceptance); offers a rationale for researchers as they begin
their researchthe method eliminates and pre-
cludes need for hypotheses and conjectures at the start
(justification of methodological flexibilityand indeterminacy);
warns against an unexamined or too briefly considered
application of extant ideas and theoriesand instead urges fresh
theorizing (justification of open-mindedness);
requires a comparative approach; keeps the analyst engaged
through adopting emergent guidelines.
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GROUNDED THEORY METHOD: AN EPISTEMOLOGICAL RE-ARRANGEMENT AND
RE-ENGAGEMENT
For over a decade, the basic principles of GTM have come under
fire both fromwithin and without the GTM community. In
philosophical terms, some scholars(e.g. Layder, 1998) have accused
GTM of nave inductivism; and the method hasbeen labelled as
positivist. Several scholars take these criticisms as
sufficientreason to argue that the method is fundamentally flawed;
yet others have soughtto distinguish between particular versions or
aspects of GTM, pointing out howthe method can overcome these
criticisms. Hence we have made the distinctionbetween objectivist
and constructivist GTM (see Bryant, 2002, 2003; Charmaz,2000, 2002,
2006).
To an extent, we can see the objectivistconstructivist
distinction as an attemptto distinguish between the essences and
the historical accidents of GTM, i.e.between the core aspects of
the method, without which it wouldnt be GTM, andthe aspects which
can be traced back to the historical context within which
GTMdeveloped, and which can therefore be dispensed with. Any
attempt to tease outand separate these two categories would,
however, quickly come to grief. Whatsome would regard as essential
to GTM, others would see as accidental. At thisstage we prefer to
delineate the variety of ideas and developments within andaround
GTM.
What is critical, however, is to re-position GTM in the light of
the currentphilosophical and epistemological landscape. This
repositioning will allow us tounderstand such issues as those
shaping the research process, the roles, sociallocations,
perspectives of the researcher, the production of data, and the
dialec-tical relations between sensitizing concepts and induction.
Closer attention tothese issues enables us to situate our grounded
theories, see complexity, and to avoid the hegemonic reach of
over-generalization with its erasure of position-ality, difference,
time, and location (see also Clarke, 2005). Such repositioningwill
also allow us to move beyond simple criticisms that label GTM as
positivistor limited to micro-analyses.
The various debates since the 1960s have resulted in far more
acceptance ofuncertainty and indeterminacy in knowledge claims. We
may all yearn for cer-tainty, but most knowledge claims are couched
in provisional terms. When eventhe findings of the hard sciences
(usually held up as the paragons of truth andknowledge) are couched
in terms of context, probability, ambiguity, and uncer-tainty, then
no one can demand anything more from the softer
sciences.Ironically, Glaser and Strauss had clear intimations of
exactly this position intheir discussions of substantive and formal
theories, and Glasers recent workmakes some important observations
on this topic.
So although clear positivist strands are evident in the original
GTM texts, thesebooks also hold insights that can provide the basis
for a very different interpreta-tion of the method. More
importantly, we can usefully and successfully build onits key
features of theoretical agnosticism (Henwood & Pidgeon, 2003:
138),
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